"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-13-2020, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2020, 08:43 PM by Warden.)
resurrect the saint within the wretch
Winter once again bears its ugly head and like every year prior, Warden finds himself lost within the static of blizzard-like snow. His wings ache fiercely with the sheer intensity of the cold, let alone the power it took him to steer through the whirlwind of ice and howling, bitter wind. The storm rips at his skin, bitter and unrelenting; and even though he is in the midst of chaos, there is a sense of calm in the deep blue of his eyes. It was in these moments - where the world seems more turbulent than himself - that he feels the sting of hope. (He also felt this looking into her eyes, but that is something he cannot bring himself to contemplate yet - not when so much stands in his way.)
The last time he had been in the forest was also after a malevolent tempest. During the summer, when the wood was humid and sweltering, the sound of moisture dripping from branches echoing the silence. He wonders briefly where Aislyn had gone off to after their heavy conversation, but the thought of her is mild and is quickly lost on him as he lands solidly into fresh snow, the entire forest seemingly at a standstill in time.
The stallion snorts, his body littered with ice crystals that still cling to him from his flight through the storm, a slight shiver running down his spine. Warden’s eyes lift almost forlornly to the stretch of gray skies that blanket the tops of the deep green trees; it’s in the silence that he feels the most out of control.
He sighs heavily, giving his sore wings a good shake or two before pulling them in close to his sides. The movement sets shimmers of snowflakes and ice free from his feathers, cascading around him like dust before floating unceremoniously into the snow. Dusk threatens the afternoon sun, sending long shadows across the perfect white canvas.
Warden isn’t sure how long he is alone in the forest when the silence is broken by the obvious sound of another. He lifts his head slightly, peering into the somewhat darkness almost blearily. What he finds causes the pale pink of his mouth to twitch upwards. It’s a smile, but it is hesitant and thoughtful - their meetings have yet to show anything but death and he wonders if they should both expect as much now.
11-14-2020, 12:57 PM (This post was last modified: 11-14-2020, 01:06 PM by lilliana.)
I GET A LAUGH OUTTA STARIN' AT DARKNESS / AND WONDERING WHY PEOPLE LIVE IN THE LIGHT / I DRIVE FAST AND RUMBLE THE HARDEST / I DON'T FEEL ALIVE IF I AIN'T IN THE FIGHT /
There was no pattern as to when Leonidas would appear. Lilliana kept an eye on the moon as it waxed or wane to see if it called to the young star like the tides. When the moon was gone, there was Leonidas shining bright. When the moon was full, there he was again, attempting to shine brighter (and seeming somewhat affronted that the moon would take up so much of his sky). She kept track of the path that the stars traveled, watching to see if the motion of the others would change something for Leonidas.
Sometimes, he was gone for several nights (to which he would tell Lilliana: I was playing tag with the Pleiades. or Have you been to the Milky Way? All the stars there love to shine and it would be rude to not say hello.). Sometimes, Leonidas came night after night while Lilliana did her best to hide his existence from her family. (Because what could she say? My ancestors have always followed the stars. They are known as the Heralds of Change, Shepards of the Lost, and the last time I thought I saw the stars, they lead me down a path that I am still recovering from. I no longer trust the Gods of my kin so how can I ask you to trust what I do not?)
She isn't sure how she has managed to go this long concealing his existence.
On nights like tonight though, she is reminded that it can't go on forever. Leonidas beams with energy and he dances, twirling between and around the Redwoods. He glows and then dims, trying to get Lilliana to indulge him in a game. Her children have already fallen asleep and Leilan lingers somewhere nearby (if he has noticed Lilli drifting into the dark during some nights, he has never said). While a winter storm rages around the northern part of Beqanna, the dense forest keeps them sheltered from the worst of it. The star and the Taigan mare spends hours as Leonidas floats among the flurries.
What is this? the star asks, having never seen snow before. Misery, Lilliana had teasingly thought back as her skin quivered, attempting to disperse the flakes that settled on her crimson coat. He had prodded her for more, lowering down to the ground where the snow glittered lovely beneath his starshine. This is the time of year that our world sleeps, Lilliana explained. The snow reminds us to rest.
Leonidas hovered above the ground before rising again, curious about this snow and the drifts it made between the Sequoias. His curiosity made him more radiant than usual and so Lilliana lead him out of Taiga and to a place where she wouldn't have to conceal his brilliant nature. They walk as the storm stills and finally dies away, leaving Lilliana to plod along the powder-covered ground while Leonidas still glows with excitement. The chestnut mare attempts to join in - and as she starts to illuminate around her white-socked ankles - the star darted between barren branches. The sudden darkness nearly blinded her and her sight readjusted to reveal a figure moving through the Forest. It's the white wings she sees first (always) and it is a flash of her involuntary fear that sends Leonidas charging down from the bough that he kept watch of Warden from.
"@[Warden]," Lilliana greeted the Tephran with a warm, summer smile that becomes interrupted by Leonidas and she grimaces as he blazes bright between them. The star burns a brilliant blue before blinking out in warning, spiraling up and down above the antlered stallion. "Leonidas," she softly called out, trying to calm him down. "It's alright." The young star slowed before rising to hover above them in a way that still seemed protective over Lilliana and distrustful of the pegasus. "This is a friend."
hurricane (johnnie's song) - lord huron image credit to footybandit
lmao so i guess he is an angry little star that feels threatened by Warden. let me know if i need to change anything <3
11-17-2020, 07:47 PM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2020, 07:48 PM by Warden.)
resurrect the saint within the wretch
The darkness in Warden’s eyes now swims with the reflection of silvery-blue light, surprise also brought to life within them as the glowing orb bounds towards him. His relatives were known for their wielding of light and for a moment he thinks of Rhaegar specifically - but in his thoughts he realizes that this isn’t exactly the same thing and though it is unlike the horned stallion to be, he is curious. Warden finds himself blinking and near-blind by the intensity of the light that buzzes with energy, turning his ivory face away from it and lowering his head, attempting to peer up at Lilliana between his spiraling horns.
“A new friend, Lilliana?” His voice is a grumble in its stony tone, but there is a playfulness that dances in his eyes. Maybe it is the bouncing ball of light that brings out this side of him or the fact that it is making it very clear that it is not a fan of Warden. The stallion raises his head as the light moves upwards, hovering above them like a spotlight and painting the white snow in its blue light, sending the landscape glittering. “You’ve named him?” There is a quirk to his brows as his gaze falls back to Lilliana, not yet understanding that Leonidas had his name long before he had come to the chestnut mare.
A friend.
The way she describes him makes him tilt his head slightly, lifting his chin upwards to inspect the light once again. He wonders how she’s decided what to call him - a friend - when their encounters have always left both of them reeling and emotionally drained. Is she as tense as he is, waiting for the moment where his eyes turn milky white and he leaves them, only to return with visions that she can’t help but see? He snorts softly, pressing his lips together thoughtfully. Had what he saw come to fruition?
He hesitates, debating inwardly before finally asking: “How are things?”
An innocent enough question, but for the two of them, it holds much more.
AND YESTERDAY, I TRIED TO PRAY / BUT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY / I'M TOO SAD TO CRY /
Warden's eyes widen in surprise - mirroring a reaction that Lilliana had worn when Leonidas first shone down on her. Her blue eyes had widened in shock and then fear. And when it became obvious that the star meant to stay, they had darkened with anger. Why? She had wanted to know. It was just one more thing in her life that she didn't have an answer for.
But Leonidas didn't seem to mind creating more for her. Just as the young star didn't seem to mind creating more problems, either.
The horned stallion lowers his head and Leonidas remained perched above, hovering over Lilliana and 'glowering' down on the painted stag as well as a faceless entity could. Lilli sighed, still reaching out through the tendrils of their bond to calm the little ball of light, and then smiled apologetically to the Watcher. She had spent many nights awake with Leonidas and the weariness of those hours are revealed underneath his blue-white light that pools between the pair. "Sort of," she tries to explain. Leo had finally stopped dancing until Warden had looked up and at the mention of him, the glowing orb descended from the bough again.
Ask him why somebody bothered to name him. Leonidas chirped in her mind, wanting to taunt the pegasus. I could think of a few things to call him. The star thought before he received another pointed look from his bonded. He hovered before racing back up to the bower where he continued to glow defensively.
She can only smile apologetically beneath their shared starlight. Warden tilts his head inquisitively towards her and Lilliana peers up at him through the shadows. Had she said something wrong?
Until he asks her: how are things?
Lilliana attempts to hold herself together. She steels herself, as she always does when a question like this is poised to her. The chestnut mare has gotten good at smiling, at slipping somewhere away behind her blue eyes, where nobody ever to wonders (or dares to follow) where she goes. There are only three souls who might know the moment that it happens; one dwells a world away from Beqanna, the other has left this life and the last bares scars that will burn in Lilliana's memory long after that friend is gone as well.
"Brazen," she starts, and then the name hitches in her throat. "Brazen died." Saying the name of her fallen companion unleashes a dam of emotion that had been leveed in her chest. Once she starts talking, the words (and emotions) come pouring out. "Taiga burnt. And Nerine. The Pangeans came, just as you saw and-," and there is nothing to keep the rest at bay. Lilliana is simply too exhausted. "There was nothing I could do." She had found a way to spare Brennen during the attack but the price she had paid with her healing had cost Brazen her life.
Tears are burning bright in her blue eyes and she has to turn her slender face away, afraid that Leonidas' shine might reveal it.
"The knowing wasn't the worst part," she confides softly to the Tephran. "It's this," she admits.
Existing in the After. Existing after the End.
too sad to cry - sasha sloan image credit to footybandit
Warden snorts softly as the ball of silver-blue light - Leonidas - descends upon him once again in a swooping dive. The horned stallion took an uncertain step back to give the star a bit of space, unsure of its intentions - though based on Lilliana’s reaction, they weren’t exactly good ones. There is indifference that falls across the planes of Warden’s ivory face, but within it are glimmers of humor, finding it only fitting that a companion without a face would be so unhappy with him.
Before Lilliana begins to respond, Warden can feel the weight that grows suddenly between them. His expression falls as hard as steel, his navy eyes darkening. It was only a matter of time, he reminds himself and there is a moment where he thinks to remind the chestnut mare as well. But she is more to him now than the stranger that had accidentally seen his visions - she no longer is some wide-eyed mare with dreams of stopping the future. She is a friend, and so his mouth remains in that firm, terse line.
The future always comes.
For a while, he had almost forgotten this truth. He had nearly forgotten the burden that she carried (because of him) and that he had been the lucky one - though terrible, these premonitions did not involve his loved ones. They came to pass as he had told her they would, but they do not affect him. Not in the way that it affects her. He is only the Watcher, forced to know the future but lack the ability to do anything more than that. But Lilliana had refused this; there was a way, always a way, and though he had scoffed at her hope, he had held onto it for himself for a long while.
His nose twitches at the sight of her grief, his dark ears falling into his mane. The sound of hopelessness in her voice is oh so familiar and it makes his jaw clench tightly. He forgets about Leonidas for a moment, his dark legs bringing him closer to her.
Warden has no words of wisdom for her; nothing to soothe the raw emotion and heartbreak that is so easily seen and heard. He can only offer to help carry the weight of it - for he had been the one who put it there in the first place.
“You weren’t meant to see it,” he whispers darkly, anger furrowing in his brow. It isn’t aimed towards her, of course, but at himself. She had seen and known things that she shouldn’t have and he left her to figure it out herself. How much more is her grief thanks to him? Warden doesn’t reach out to touch her but the way that he holds his head shows that there is a part of him that feels like he should.
He inhales deeply. “And it never ends,” he reminds her calmly, somehow able to soften his voice.
“The cycle begins again.”
Even now he feels the creeping dread stirring coldly in his stomach. What else would come to pass?
11-26-2020, 05:06 PM (This post was last modified: 11-26-2020, 05:41 PM by lilliana.)
AND YESTERDAY, I TRIED TO PRAY / BUT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY / I'M TOO SAD TO CRY /
If Warden is the Watcher, who is Lilliana?
She has taken her father's title - called herself Guardian - but she feels like a girl playing pretend. The crown of branches she wears on her brow feels borrowed and she can't quite help looking back into her past, as if Valerio might come blowing in on a windstorm. As if Ichiro might step from the shadows of history and cast judgment on this descendant: on a girl who lost her path some time ago and found a title instead.
Lilliana has tried on the masks - of her ancestors, of her immediate family - and they always come crashing to the ground. She had none of Aletta's unwavering certainty; none of Valero's faith that their gods would put things to rights. The girl who had been born of those two souls repeated the facts, like she might find a sliver of her old self between the truths: You are the fourth child of five. You were born in Murmuring Rivers. You are the daughter of a Guardian and a Regent. You are a mother to five. You are a friend to many. You are a Taigan.
(How many times has she repeated this to herself? How many times has she said this? Because the truth was that Lilli went into this Forest one night and got lost. The truth is Lilli never found her way out.)
Warden comes closer and Lilliana keeps looking away because her sadness is something that she has never learned how to share. She feels like a sinner, confiding to the Watcher what she has. There isn't another that she has confessed to, told at how hard it is to exist in a world where Brazen doesn't. There isn't anyone else that she has told of how she is a newborn in the eyes of Immortals - a blink, barely a decade - and Lilliana already feels as if she has seen ten lifetimes.
It's a heaviness that even Leonidas seems to feel as lingers above, balancing in the bare branches. He floats down but drifts up again, watchful of the horned pegasus that draws near his bonded.
"Maybe I was," she says to the Watcher. It's the part of her that echoes with distant anger, the parts that wonder why good souls leave this life far too young, why there are paths cross that shouldn't, why hearts like Warden are given visions of things that they can't change. The part of Lilliana that had refused to acquiesce to Warden's vision of Brazen's death still rails against it; there are visions of a little boy in Taiga - tobiano and flaxen-haired, blue-eyed and bone-armored like his mother - playing with two older foals. Turning her slender head to where the pegasus approaches, Lilliana finally looks at him. "She wasn't alone." It's one (small) silver lining in a dark they both share; one small beacon of hope and Lilliana will always drift towards the light, always a moth to the flame, always wanting to burn as Icarus had.
What he intones in the dark resonates clearly to Lilliana: the future always comes.
But she isn't thinking of her mother or her iron-clad confidence. She isn't thinking of the way that Aletta perceived the world. (Aletta saw the world in clear brush strokes: black and white. There was or there wasn't. When she had found Lilliana in Taiga staring into the empty spaces and aching for her lost child, wanting to vanish into the fog, the gray mare had told her: 'This ends, now. There is no in-between. There is only living or dying. And you are alive.') She is remembering the gray stallion from the field - Larva - who had claimed that he had returned from the Afterlife.
"Magic has a price," she says slowly, as if warning herself. "But if there was a way to break the cycle...," she doesn't finish. Ever since the Mountain had called her and forced a choice upon her - either Craft or Anatomy - Lilliana has avoided it. She had drawn upon every other available outlet to save Brazen; the Mountain had been where she drew the line.
If the gates between this world and the next were hazy, if there was a way to bring Brazen back, "would you do it?"
too sad to cry - sasha sloan image credit to footybandit
He likes to pretend that ancestors are not involved in the current events that have come to pass - that their watchful eye in the stars have not played a hand in each terrible thing he has witnessed, or simply watched as death and destruction wields its infinite sword. It swings much like a clock, time ticking away without anyone to stop its solemn march forward, deliberate and relentless. It’s covered in blood and tears and sweat, a thing that Warden had become familiar with far too soon and far too long. He nearly greets it like a friend, welcoming the sabotage that runs rampant like a plague. He can do nothing so he does nothing, yet in this moment beneaeth the winking starlight and darkness, he wonders if he should.
Do something.
Powerless is something he has always felt; dark and lonely and on the verge of collapse. Torn between what keeps him whole and what tears him in half. There is always hope for the future yet he cannot bring himself to fully live in that hope, knowing that the future will not change once he has seen it.
It always comes.
The horned stallion’s throat is tight with emotion, but he remains stoic and placid beneath the flickering starlight that spreads silver light between the two of them. The sadness in her eyes match his own and his dark blue eyes fill with unshed tears - the ones he saves for the departed he has yet to know, the ones he witnesses in the future but not in his own time. Her voice comes to him and it is not how he remembers - she is broken, unlike their last encounter. He scowls, disliking the way that darkness has come to shroud the brightness she once gave him, his ears falling into the darkness of his mane on his neck.
“Maybe,” he replies darkly, not believing her but not wishing to speak against her. He cannot imagine that anyone should see what he sees - but he will not strip her of this if that is what she wishes to cling to. He will not tear her down when there is so much that already has. He turns his ivory face away from her, staring into the darkness of the forest and allowing the cold to seep deeper into his bones and in his chest.
A single ear pricks towards her, his dark gaze flickering towards her. “The cycle can’t be broken.” His voice is flat and even, deliberate and with a sharpened edge that he carries wearily. There is finality in his voice, grave and full of caution. His face turns to her once again, the deep blue opal of his horns sparkling in the light of Leonidas’ glow.
12-07-2020, 02:57 PM (This post was last modified: 12-07-2020, 03:17 PM by lilliana.)
AND YESTERDAY, I TRIED TO PRAY / BUT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY / I'M TOO SAD TO CRY /
They learned to walk with their ancestors.
As wobbling foals, they are told that their first steps are not taken alone but with Legado. That the Wind guides them forward and will help them find the balance in their stride (and in life) to keep them steady. When they found the ground beneath them - when they finally learn to run - they are told that they are communing with their Gods. The Wind always carried the answers; echoes from the past, premonitions from the future.
And the present had always been for running so fast - for being so deft and fleet of hoof that moments suspended above the ground could be interpreted as flying. (There is no outrunning the past or the present or the future, she knows. But sometimes insight came easier when a heart hammered so hard against a ribcage that it pounded away all doubts. When lungs filled so full with air that they felt like they were burning, that the flame from them could burn away a soul's dark troubles.)
She wishes she could look at Warden.
Lilliana can feel the gaze of the pegasus on her but she merely looks up Leonidas. The star hovers above in the canopy, content to observe the pair from above without interruption (for the meantime). The cycle can't be broken, he says and her delicate ears pin into the wild curls of her windswept mane. There is a finality in his voice that reminds her so much of Aletta that she simultaneously aches and rages at the same time. Lilliana, who was said to be descended from summer gales, rails against the iron certainty that she also carries in her blood.
The anger that blows through her is like the cold front that precedes a storm, that brisk rush of air that foreshadows the bellow of thunder to come.
Leonidas' light continues to bathe them in shades of silver-blue. Lilliana's eyes are flashing lightning strikes - of pain, of sadness, of anger - when she finally does turn to look at him. The emotions linger together before receding to reveal her torment of late: "but would you bend it?" She asks him.
For as deeply as she feels things, her emotions have always been the hardest part of herself to share. Lilliana has always struggled with them inwardly, battled, and fought her own demons. Her sadness would swallow her if she allowed it. She was terrified of her anger, of the way that she sometimes felt the rage echoing between heartbeats like a war drum. (How does Warden do it? How does the see the endings come and not rise against it?)
The Taigan closes her eyes because it's the only way she knows how to contain it.
Quietly, she asks, "Does it ever make you angry?"
too sad to cry - sasha sloan image credit to footybandit
He recgonizes that anger as her ears fall into the depths of her curling mane and he wonders what kind of way her eyes will burn into him when she finally turns to meet his face. He is patient, stoic and nearly frozen before her, his two-toned neck stretched somewhat towards her as if meaning to comfort her with his touch, but failing to find the strength to bring himself those few steps closer. There is a myriad of emotions in her eyes when she raises her head to him and Warden finds his own face meeting hers with a nearly indifferent expression - a look that comes from years of disappointment; years of wanting the future to change and watching it crumble (just the way he had seen it) into oblivion. It is a face of lost cause, of dwindling hope, that had once believed in happy endings (and still does) but finds no foothold to make any of it come true. Warden is hardened by each vision, his heart and emotions further entrapped in thorns each time he returns, and it nearly captivates him to see all of the emotions that flash in her once gentle eyes.
The Watcher turns his face slightly away from her to then to stare into the darkness of the forest around them, where it is still and quiet and the world is sleeping.
“I would,” he murmurs in a huff, turning a single white ear towards her. “but I do not wield that sort of power.” He has been given a curse, not a gift, and he wonders if she’s forgotten this or if, even in the midst of very real death, she still clings to the hope that has long since turned into cooling embers in the pit of Warden’s stomach. But where one fire dies, one arises. Where one is on the brink of extinguishing, another is raging wildly.
Her question makes him snort sharply, jerkingly turning his head further from her with a sweep of his neck. The obsidian of his horns catch the faint blue light of Leonidas, sparkling brilliantly in the star’s rays. His ears are hidden beneath the tousled black of his mane, his jaw clenched tight. He doesn’t know how to share it with her, how to explain that he is always angry, that it flows from him like the lava from Tephra’s volcano. There is a desolation that resides in his chest and it burns like acid, a heavy weight that is quietly crushing from the inside out. “What kind of question is that?” He finally says bitterly, refusing to meet her gaze. “Of course I’m angry. It’s stolen everything from me and then makes me watch it steal from everyone else, too. I’m powerless.”
Warden’s voice begins bristly and angry, but wanes and fades into such sadness, he cannot help but look up to Leonidas with sad, confused eyes. He sighs bitterly before closing his eyes, lowering his head, and shaking it gently. How did it always come back to him? (Because the cycle never ends.)
He almost wishes he’d have a vision now - to show her, to remind her - just what it is that plagues him so. Every time he is reminded of just how small he is, how incapable he is of protecting those around him, and how useless he is.
When his head turns towards her again, it is almost with curiosity that his eyes meet hers. “Why are you asking me this? Why talk about hope when there is none?”
12-12-2020, 11:51 PM (This post was last modified: 12-12-2020, 11:59 PM by lilliana.)
AND THE OLD WIDOW GOES TO THE STONE EVERYDAY / BUT I DON'T, I JUST SIT HERE AND WAIT / GRIEVING FOR THE LIVING /
Are they tempting fate?
No, she tells herself. No, just you.
Warden looks up and Lilliana follows his gaze by instinct, glancing up towards Leonidas and then above him. The star that appears perched on a tangle of barren branches is not with who her quarrel is with; it is them. The bright, shining stars that flicker in knowing silence against a midnight velvet sky. Her earliest memories are of them, of a night not much different than this one. (It had been another lifetime but it had been winter and the darkest part of the year. What better time of year for the sky to come alive with starlight?)
Her mother had left their Willow and Lilliana, feeling the chill brush against her fine coat went chasing the ache through the snow to follow her dam. She had found Aletta in a clearing, in a spot where she could better see her secret-keepers. It was where her mother had unburdened her heavy soul and it had been there that Lilliana had learned to look up.
They've played a constant role all through her life - from Beyond to Beqanna.
She thinks of Aletta, explaining that it had been them that finally convinced her to leave Beyond and her beloved mountains. She thinks of her brother who worships them in a cove where the sky never sleeps, who it was said, met a fallen star and was trying to help her return. She thinks of Elena the last time they spoke who told her about Azrael, the shed-star: 'I wished for a star when I was little. And by the gods, he was delivered to me.'
Aletta is gone. Jay is gone. Elena is gone.
She is left with Leonidas.
Does she make a wish upon him?
She grits her teeth instead of wishing. She bites back against her anger instead of unleashing it at Warden. He is bitter and she is burning; Lilliana is pushing back against his anguish, is fighting against it and trying not to unleash all her recent sufferings: Brazen's last breath and the way her body had turned to stone, how Reave had huddled against her like he still expected her to rise, the charred remains of a few Taigan redwoods near the Nerinian border, voices from the argument with Yanhua and Leilan ricocheting in that same forest.
Lilliana dams herself up - preventing the memories from releasing - but her nostrils are flaring and she is wide-eyed when she looks back to Warden, barely illuminated in Leonidas' glow. Some parts of him are obscured in shadow and she can barely see the outline of his mighty, curved horns. The jewels that adorn his chest barely catch on the silver-blue light that pools around them, that drapes across their backs and shadows their faces.
All but the eyes.
"Because," she starts but her voice comes out smaller than it ever has before, than it has any right to be. A voice so fragile that even Lilliana doesn't recognize it. Because I am angry, she meant to say, wants to say. But the words are too heavy on her tongue, an unforgiving weight that prevents her from saying the rest. Because it isn't the truth. This is, a terrifying revelation that she finally shares instead. "Because I'm afraid."
